After relying on third parties for several years - Internet Explorer, Netscape - Apple decided that it was time to take matters into its own hands. It was time Apple created its own browser (again). And so, Safari was born, and released unto the world ten years ago. These past few weeks, Don Melton, the project lead for Safari and WebKit, has been sharing a lot of interesting stories about the origins and development of Apple's browser.

As for open standards, I've said it before and I'll say it again, Apple would destroy them if they could. Decision to use open source rendering engine was driven by pure pragmatic reasons, namely Apple cannot sustain heavy software development. They are aware of this therefore they grab whatever they can and modify it. Open source has benefited far less from Apple, compared with how much has apple benefited from open source!!

What's wrong with pragmatic? I far prefer a pragmatist to a ideologue. And what's wrong with Apple benefiting more than 'open source' (as if it were one coherent community), so long as the wider open source community benefits to some degree too.

Its called enlightened self interest, and its a damned good principle to run a company division on, not just for the division and the company, but for the industry and the customers too.